Lawmakers pad DPWH budget by P30 billion

MANILA, Philippines - Senators and congressmen have padded the 2010 budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) by more than P30 billion.

The DPWH is the agency where most congressional pork barrel funds are hidden.

The department received an additional P30.3 billion from the bicameral conference committee on the budget jointly chaired by Senate finance committee chairman Sen. Edgardo Angara and his House counterpart, Quirino Rep. Junie Cua.

It was the biggest augmentation made by the Angara-Cua conference committee, which increased new funds for the DPWH for next year from P96.6 billion, as proposed by President Arroyo, to P126.9 billion.

When the House approved the President’s P1.541-trillion 2010 budget proposal, congressmen added P16.4 billion in pork barrel funds to the DPWH, raising its outlay to P113 billion.

When the House-approved version was considered in the conference committee, it was the turn of Angara and his Senate colleagues to add P13.9 billion more.

In contrast, the Angara-Cua panel gave the Department of Education (DepEd) an additional P2.1 billion, increasing its budget to P161.4 billion.

State universities and colleges received P2.8 billion more, bringing the total amount of funds they will get next year to P22.4 billion.

DepEd, where some pork barrel funds are also hidden, and state schools received a combined augmentation of P4.9 billion, less than a sixth of the Angara-Cua committee gave DPWH in additional money.

During the House deliberations on Mrs. Arroyo’s budget proposal, Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya Jr. said the President reduced the amount of money she proposed for DPWH for next year, compared to this year’s level, because the department still had tens of billions in backlog spending.

“There’s no use giving them additional money because they cannot spend it anyway,” he said.

He said unlike other appropriations, infrastructure funds are good for two years.

The huge amounts of increases that the Angara-Cua conference committee gave away came from money that taxpayers would pay next year for the nation’s P4.3-trillion debt.

The panel reduced debt payment funds from P340.8 billion, as the President proposed, to P276.2 billion, or by P64.6 billion.

The House and the Senate took turns in taking away money intended as amortization for the national debt.

In their version of the budget, congressmen cut debt funds by P29.9 billion. During the conference committee deliberations, it was the turn of senators to make an additional P34.7-billion reduction.

The other recipients of huge augmentations include the Department of Agriculture, which received an additional P3.3 billion; Department of Transportation and Communications, P2.1 billion; Department of Agrarian Reform, P1.3 billion; Department of Environment and Natural Resources, P1.5 billion; Department of the Interior and Local Government, P1.1 billion.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development got an additional P915 million, while the Department of Health got P566 million more.

Subsidies for government corporations were increased by P3.3 billion to P24.3 billion.

Among the recipients was Angara’s two-year-old Aurora Special Economic Zone Authority (ASEZA), whose 2010 budget jumped five times to P800 million from only P145 million as proposed by Mrs. Arroyo.

ASEZA has barely taken off. It is even in a dispute with scores of farmers, who are claiming part of its territory.